Arranged Marriage: The Prince and I

4

Aziza jack-knifed into a sitting position with a loud gasp. She rued the moment she made the voluntary action when pain throbbed from different areas in her body. Pushing all that to the back of her mind, she blinked a few times to focus her blurry vision.

A whimper escaped her trembling lips once she surveyed her surroundings and realized where she was. It took a moment for the confusion to give into anxiety as her memories returned to her. Dread radiated within her chest, causing her to wrap her arms around her torso.

She was alone in a small, lonely and musty jail cell. Solid walls surrounded her, save for the bars where that opened into her cell. Standing to her shaky legs, she walked up to them, wound her trembling fingers around them so she could try to peer out into the hallway. She couldn't see anything or anyone. Everything was quiet and she couldn't see anything other than white walls and jail bars everywhere. If there were other detainees around, they must have been quiet because the silence was overwhelming. Giving up with her head hung, Ziza shuffled back to her lumpy bed. Never had she thought she'd end up in such a place. All because she took the bait and assaulted someone powerful. This couldn't be happening. How was she here in the first place? Weren't they supposed to process her before throwing her in a box? Ask her questions and read out her rights? But then again, she thought, if one had the power to do what they wanted, it'd explain this mess.

So many more questions overwhelmed her mind, she didn't know where to begin. Why had she woken up in jail instead of a hospital with a cuff around her wrist or something? What was going to happen to her now? Was she going to prison? What would happen to her career and how would she get out of here?

In the movies, being in a holding cell was never scary. There were always people in the cell next to you, making chit-chat about their stories on how they ended up there. There was almost noise everywhere as new arrivals are being processed and thrown into their designated cells till someone came to pick them up. You would think it was the same in actual life.

Wrong.

It scared Aziza to death, the situation she was in. First, because she had never been in a jail cell. Hell, she'd never gotten a single parking ticket, or a complaint filed against her! Second, she had never committed a crime, at least not the kind that warranted arrest... until now.

Great. Not only had she pissed off the crown prince! But she was going to have a criminal record. As if it weren't enough, she was most probably going to lose her job, and that was the only thing bringing food to her table, paying the bills and helping with her tuition. She was lucky to be alive, she realised, given what she'd done. Why did she have to be so stupid?

Aziza sniffed as she slowly tucked her cold, shoeless feet beneath her to keep herself warm. The air in the room was cold, probably because of the AC humming away in the hallway. It wasn't helping one bit that the aching in her jaw was killing her. Rubbing her temples and wincing when her fingers touched the swollen flesh, she scanned the dull grey walls. They perched an enormous clock high on the wall opposite to her cell, showing that the time was just after four in the evening. But how long since the incident had occurred? Ziza didn't know. But she was in so much trouble.

Just as another whimper escaped her chapped lips, she heard a buzzer then, the jiggling of a bunch of keys on a key ring the same instant a door opened.

Heavy footsteps thumped on the concrete floor, causing her to ball herself up in the corner on her bed, wide eyed. As far away from the bars as possible. Then the footsteps stopped. There, beyond the bars, stood a tall, brawny policeman holding a bunch of keys in one of his hands and a white paper cup in the other.

"You are finally awake." The man remarked as he stared down at her. Aziza remained quiet whilst sitting on the lumpy bed, silently wishing she were safe in her room instead. Fear was most probably written across her face in bold capital letters because the man said, "Relax, you are in safe hands, there's no need to be scared."